Missing by Sumana Roy

Title: Missing
Author: Sumana Roy
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
ISBN:978-9386021991
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 267
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 Stars

There are some books that seep deep into​ your skin and sometimes you don’t even realize what they have done. “Missing” for me is one of those books. The premise as the title suggests might be that of a missing person, in this case, a missing woman, but at the core, it is about parts that go missing of ourselves and sometimes, actually most of the time, we don’t even know it.

“Missing” by Sumana Roy is so much more than what meets the eye, that it will be very difficult for me to explain what is going on in the book and in effect, what I felt as I turned its pages.

“Missing” is the kind of book that sneaks up on you in ways you wouldn’t imagine (when I say this, I mean it with the utmost good intentions). It is the summer of 2012. A young girl is molested in Guwahati. Kobita, a fifty-four-year-old activist, based out of Siliguri decides to travel to Guwahati to search for the molested girl who has gone missing. Her blind husband and poet, Nayan, is left at home, constantly waiting to hear from her. They have a son, Kabir, who is doing his research in England, on the Hill Cart road that connects Siliguri to Darjeeling. The book is about the seven days that happen in the month of July, 2012.

I will tell you why I loved Missing so much. “Missing” is a book about common people, going through life, leading seemingly common lives, till something happens. The relationship of Nayan and Kobita (so ironic that their names mean eyes and poetry when translated) is so fragile and yet Roy very tactfully doesn’t show things to the reader, till a certain time has passed in the book. In all of this, there is the making of a new bed for Nayan and Kobita, and Nayan has no choice but to depend on the carpenter and his family when it is clear that Kobita will not return anytime soon.

“Missing” to me was also about relationships that are lost and at sea and perhaps have no chance of being repaired. Do you know how that feels? Has it ever happened to you?

The writing will leave you melancholic for days and if you still want to feel a little distraught and liberated at the same time, I recommend Roy’s other book, “How I Became A Tree”. Roy’s writing is not the usual run of the mill. Why do I love her writing? She doesn’t judge anyone through her writing. There is no right or wrong. Her narration skills are superlative and research on point.

All in all, what I think is: “Missing” is a book of dashed hopes, of wanting to account for more in life and above all about what it is that makes us human or not after all. It is a book that will make you feel differently in different points of the read and will perhaps also make you question what you believe in or not.